John A. Logan Students, Faculty Participate in Mock Emergency Response

Allison Weaver is quickly surrounded by campus safety officers at John A. Logan College Friday after becoming hysterical as part of an act she played during an emergency response exercise at the campus.

Security officers surrounded Allison Weaver as she became hysterical at John A. Logan College Friday morning. "I need medicine now," Weaver screamed. "I need medicine for my family. What if they die?"

Weaver was in no immediate danger; instead she was one of 75 participants in a mock biological emergency staged for Southern Illinois. Local emergency responders planned the exercise to test the Franklin-Williamson Bi-County Health Department's ability to dispense medication to large numbers of people in the event of a real emergency. Robin Koehl, spokesperson for the health department, was pleased with Friday's outcome. "What we know now is that if the case of an actual emergency, this type of response is doable," Koehl said.

As part of the exercise, Weaver, a Marion resident, and a practical nursing student, was quickly escorted to an area curtained off by the Franklin-Williamson Human Services. There, she spoke with counselor Harold Jones who attempted to calm her down. "He did a great job," Weaver, who also plays in a number of Logan's theater productions, said following her act. "He knew the right words and the right way to say them. I was really impressed."

Koehl explained that Friday's exercise was a valuable training tool for the area's public health, mental health, emergency management, law enforcement and other area emergency responders. In Friday's case, tularemia, a naturally occurring illness caused by bacterium called Francisella tularensis, was widespread throughout the two counties. General effects are fever, chills, muscle pain and a lack of energy.

A long line of the College's faculty and students playing different roles, including Dr. Mary O'Hara, professor of sociology, who played a 22-year-old woman who was seven months pregnant, put responders to the test. "If we are going to make mistakes, we want to do it here, not in a real emergency," Koehl said. "We have approximately 100,000 people in Franklin and Williamson counties who would be depending on us in a real situation." Koehl explained that in a real emergency, John A. Logan College would be a response site. Logan's security officers, including Danny Zoller, were constantly on alert.

"We were told anything could happen; it's designed as a real life situation," Zoller said. And with Weaver's outcry it became all too apparent how quickly the situation could have changed. "Fear and hysteria are a real part of life," Jones noted. "Especially in a situation where people think their lives or the lives of loved ones are being threatened."